The Okanagan Valley, where I have resided since 2016, is an incredibly diverse ecoregion, including the forests typically associated with the PNW and valley bottoms of open Ponderosa pine and Douglas fir forest interspersed with shrub-steppe. My six years of research into fire began with a simple question: what does the aftermath of a wildfire look like? Originally from Winnipeg, Manitoba and having resided in Montréal for twelve years, fire on the land was a new and fascinating phenomenon to me as an artist using photography. I continue to make new discoveries and to be fascinated by fire’s power to sculpt the land.

 

Silent Witnesses marks a paradigm shift in my ongoing research into the aftermath and regeneration following wildfire. Whereas my earlier images of wildfire focused specifically on optimistic representations of renewal within fire-adapted ecosystems, my approach since May 2023 has relied on outdoor strobes and a digital medium format camera system to highlight individual trees or selected members of a community. My goal is to create contrast between what has been lost, what has changed and what is returning, and to produce these contrasts within a single frame. While working on this project in the Okanagan Valley, the city I currently call home went through a massive firestorm. My most recent images depict literal sightlines that have opened up in the wake of the McDougall Creek wildfire. A once scruffy Douglas fir and lodgepole pine ridge crest to the west of the city now provides abundant views and a striking example of how close this fire, which claimed nearly 200 homes, came to engulfing thousands more properties.